Choke (25 page)

“Come aboard,” Meg called, with a wave. “Dan, get another glass for Chuck.”

Chuck hopped aboard and flopped down in the cockpit, gratefully accepting the frosty glass. “I’m whipped,” he said. “I’ve got this kid, Billy Tubbs, who wants to be a pro, and he’s gotten to the point where he beats me half the time, and the other half it nearly kills me to win.”

“Chuck,” Meg said, “you haven’t met Charlie.”

Chuck turned to the girl and stuck out his hand. “Charlie what?”

“Just Charlie,” she said, shaking his hand. She was petite and dark-haired, with a gamine figure that looked wonderful in the bikini. “I never saw the need for last names.”

“I guess you have a point,” Chuck said, “but how do you differentiate yourself from all the other Charlies?”

She smiled. “I’ve never had that problem.”

Everybody laughed.

“I guess not,” Chuck conceded.

“Present company excepted,” Meg said, snuggling up to Chuck.

“Where you from, Charlie?” Chuck asked.

“Grew up in the San Fernando Valley; lived in L.A. and Las Vegas for a while after school. Recently I’ve just been traveling.”

“Where’d you travel?”

“From Vegas I worked my way east, stopped in Santa Fe and New Orleans, then went down to Miami. I was in the Bahamas when I met Dan and Meg. Not a moment too soon, either; I was broke.”

“It’s just as well I’m back on
Choke,”
Meg said. “It was getting a little crowded, anyway, and it wouldn’t have been long before Dan and Charlie would have ditched me on a beach somewhere.”

“Damn right,” Dan said. He held up the empty margarita pitcher. “Shit, and I’m out of lime juice.”

“I’ve got to go to the Waterfront Market for a few things anyway, so I’ll get you some,” Chuck said. “Meg, why don’t we invite this lovely couple aboard
Choke
for dinner?”

“Suits me.”

“I’ll pick up some steaks at the market, and you go rustle up a salad; the fixings are in the fridge.”

“I’ll take a shower, if we’re going out,” Dan said. “Charlie, we need a few things, too. Why don’t you go along with Chuck?” He handed her some money, which Charlie tucked into her bikini bra.

Chuck and Charlie strolled along the quay to the Waterfront Market, chatting idly.

“What do you think of Key West?” Chuck asked.

“It has more character than most places on the water,” Charlie replied. “Places on the water always remind me of Vegas.”

“But Las Vegas is in the desert,” Chuck said.

“The ocean is a desert; hadn’t you ever noticed?”

Chuck shrugged. “I guess maybe it is, in a way. The sea is full of life, like the desert, but the life is hidden, as in the desert.”

“Key West isn’t Florida, either,” Charlie said. “It hasn’t been paved over yet.”

“They’re working on it,” Chuck replied. “But at least there are others trying to keep it the way it is. If I stay here long enough, maybe I’ll try to help.”

In the market they each got a basket and went their separate ways, stocking up. Chuck had chosen the steaks and selected a couple of bottles of wine and was headed for the register when Charlie appeared from behind a shelf, looking flustered.

“Something wrong?” Chuck asked.

“I just saw somebody I used to know and don’t want to know anymore. Let’s just stay here for a minute until the coast is clear.”

“You wait here; I want to get some bread.” Chuck left her with her cart and went toward the baked goods counter. He was nearly there when Clare Carras passed in front of him, heading for the checkout and looking neither to her left or right. Chuck was happy she hadn’t seen him; he had no desire to talk to her. He got the bread and went back for Charlie.

“Was it a woman you were avoiding?” he asked the girl.

“You could say that,” Charlie replied. “You could also call her a snake.”

“Is her name Clare Carras?”

“It was Clare Connor when I knew her.”

“She’s checked out by now; the coast is clear.”

They paid for their groceries and started back to the boat.

“Where did you know her?” Chuck asked.

“In Vegas; she was a pro.”

It took Chuck a moment to figure out that she wasn’t talking about tennis. “You mean she was a hooker?”

“No,
I
was a hooker; she was my boss.”

“Oh?” Chuck said, his eyebrows going up.

“Don’t be so shocked,” Charlie said. “Dan knows about it; it’s okay with him.”

“I didn’t mean to seem shocked,” Chuck replied. “It’s just that I was …”

“Shocked,” Charlie said.

“Okay, shocked.”

“Clare was running a string out of the Empress Hotel, and she was married to the tennis pro at the hotel. She was an absolute bitch.”

Chuck stopped and looked at her. “What was the tennis pro’s name?”

“Connor, I guess. I never knew his first name.”

“That is really strange,” Chuck said. “The guy I work for here is named Connor, and he’s a tennis pro.”

“Probably not the same guy,” she said.

“Probably not.” Chuck was thinking about that.

“Go ahead, ask me,” Charlie said.

“What?”

“Ask me the question.”

“What question?”

“The one every man asks me: What was it like being a pro?”

“Okay, what was it like being a pro?”

“It was fun.”

“Fun?
I always thought it would be damned hard work.”

“Well, the hours could be long, but the money was great, and the sex was good.”

Chuck stopped in his tracks. “The sex was good? Even when you were …”

“Doing it all the time? Sure it was. Most of the girls I knew—those who weren’t dykes—were in it for the sex.”

“Not for the money?”

“Sure, for the money, too, but think about it: If you like sex, and I sure do, then you can have all you want by turning pro. People are always saying—if they like their work—that they would do it even if they weren’t being paid for it.”

“I guess I’ve always thought about my work that way,” Chuck admitted. “I’ve always enjoyed it.”

“So did I,” Charlie said. “Do you think that makes me a bad person?”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“Good,” she said, apparently satisfied.

“Clare was your madam, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Did she ever …”

“Turn tricks? I’m not sure I would call it that—not for the kind of money she got for it.”

“What kind of money?”

“Well, most of us were in the two-to-five-hundred bracket,” Charlie said. “Then there were a few absolute knockouts who got a thousand to fifteen hundred, but Clare, rumor had it, got five grand a pop.”

“Five thousand dollars?”

“For an hour.”

Chuck wondered what his tab would have been if he had been paying. “That’s astonishing.”

“Well, it was just a rumor among the girls. We never knew for sure, but once in a while—every couple of weeks or so—some dandy John would turn up, and Clare would disappear with him—always for a drink, she would say.”

They had reached
Choke
and were ready to go aboard.

“Charlie,” Chuck said, “would you do me a favor?”

“What kind of favor?”

“There’s a guy I know I’d like you to meet.”

“No thanks, Chuck, I’m out of the game,” she said.

“No, you don’t understand; he’s a cop, not a potential client.”

“Is this connected with the trouble you’re supposed to be in?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if I can help, sure.”

“Thanks, Charlie; I appreciate it very much.”

“No problem.”

They went aboard and Chuck surrendered the steaks to Meg. All through dinner he thought about what Charlie had told him, but he couldn’t make any sense of it. Maybe Tommy Sculley could.

T
ommy and Daryl had just taken seats in the chief’s office when the chief’s secretary came in. “There’s a Chuck Chandler to see you,” she said to Tommy.

“Chief,” Tommy said, “do you mind if we see Chandler before we bring you up to date?”

The chief leafed through his calendar. “In an hour and a half,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Tommy said, and led the way from the room. Chuck was in the foyer with a very pretty woman. “What’s up?” Tommy asked.

“There’s some new information you ought to know about,” Chuck replied. “Can we talk somewhere?”

“Sure, follow me.” Tommy led them to an interrogation room, and everybody took a seat.

“This is Charlie,” Chuck said. “Detectives Sculley and Haynes.”

“How do you do?” Tommy said.

“Tommy, Charlie is living aboard the boat next to mine, and yesterday we were in the Waterfront Market when we saw Clare Carras. Charlie, tell him what you told me.”

Tommy listened, rapt, as Charlie told her story, not interrupting her. When she had finished he sat there grinning.

“Is this helpful?” Chuck asked.

“Very possibly,” Tommy replied. “Folks, I thank you for the information, and I’ll be in touch.” He stood up and shook Charlie’s hand.

“Aren’t you going to ask Charlie any questions?” Chuck asked.

“Charlie is a very thorough young lady,” Tommy said. “If we need to know more we’ll get ahold of her. And Charlie, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know if you should decide to leave town.”

“Sure,” Charlie said.

“Let’s start again,” Tommy said to the chief. “We’ve just had some new information that’s very interesting.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” the chief said. “Tell me.”

“At our last meeting I told you my theory of another man who helped Clare Carras murder her husband.”

“I remember,” the chief replied.

“Now we think we may know who the man is.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Listen to this: the Olde Island Racquet Club is run by a man named Merkle Connor, called Merk. We looked into his background and learned that he has a history of playing around with other men’s wives. In fact, it almost got him court-martialed when he was in the army. He was having it off with his commanding officer’s wife.”

“Interesting parallel,” the chief said.

“Right, and there’s more. As a result of his philandering, Merk got shipped up to the Aleutians, where his daily work was setting explosive charges on a road they were building.”

“Ties in nicely with the exploding yacht, doesn’t it?”

“Right. And remember, when the yacht went up, both Chuck Chandler and the other instructor, Victor Brennan, were having dinner with the Carrases at Louie’s.”

“But not Merk.”

“Not Merk.”

“I like this, Tommy.”

“There’s more, Chief. We’ve just had the most enormous break in tying this all together. A girl who’s visiting on the island recognized Clare Carras in the grocery store. She knew Clare from Las Vegas and said that the lady was a high-class madam there, and get this, she was married to a tennis pro named Connor.”

“Our boy Merk?”

“That’s my guess, Chief.”

“They’re divorced now?”

“Right. We knew that Merk had gotten clobbered financially in a divorce, but we had no idea it was a divorce from Clare.”

“So they got back together?”

“It’s happened before. How many guys get divorced, then marry their ex-wives again? Happens all the time.”

“Except this time, the lady already had a husband.”

“A very rich one. From the fruits of our search of the Carras place, we know he was worth at least fifteen million, and I suspect he had a lot more hidden.”

“You going to pull in Merk Connor, then?”

“I don’t think we’re ready for that, Chief.”

“Why not?”

“The usual: no material evidence.”

“Bring him in and sweat him, then, see what he has to say for himself.”

Tommy shook his head. “If we do that he’ll just deny everything, and we’re in no position to prove he’s done anything. Right now, our strongest card is that Clare Carras and Merk Connor don’t know that we know about their connection. I think we’re better off keeping an eye on both of them and waiting for something to happen.”

“Wait for
what
to happen?” the chief demanded.

“For them to make a mistake of some kind.”

“A mistake of some kind?
Tommy, you’re driving me nuts.”

“I’m sorry, Chief, but we have to play this game with the cards we’re dealt, and right now our hand just isn’t strong enough.”

“Okay,” the chief said, “then it’s my deal. Here’s what you’re going to do, and I don’t want to hear a word of objection from either of you, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the two detectives said simultaneously.

The sun was low in the sky as Tommy and Daryl pulled up to the Olde Island Racquet Club. They could see Chuck Chandler as he ended a lesson and walked from the court toward the clubhouse.

“Come on,” Tommy said.

“I wish I knew this was the right thing to do,” Daryl replied.

“We’ve got our orders; let’s make it look good.”

“Is Merk in the office, do you think?”

“He usually is.”

Tommy led the way past the courts and into the clubhouse. Chuck was talking to his student about a racket and how it should be strung. Merk was in his office working at the computer.

“Let’s wait ‘til he’s done,” Tommy said in a low voice. He pretended to be interested in some sweat socks on a display.

Merk turned at his desk and saw Tommy; he got up and came out from behind the counter. “Hi, can I help you guys?”

“We just want a word with Chuck,” Tommy said. “When he’s finished.” He watched Merk go back to his desk.

The student thanked Chuck for his advice and left the clubhouse.

Chuck turned and saw the two detectives. “Hi, Tommy,” he said. “What’s happening?”

Tommy stepped up to the counter. “Chuck, you’re under arrest for the murder of Harry Carras.”

“What?” Chuck said weakly.

“You have the right to remain silent; you have the right to an attorney; if you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed by the court to defend you; if you choose to talk to us, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand these rights?”

“Tommy, you can’t believe …”

“Do you understand these rights?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Chuck, let’s do this quietly. Now, I’ll forgo the handcuffs if you’ll give me your word not to make a disturbance.”